Intended for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners, this course will explore indigenous ways of knowing and how they can benefit all students. Topics include historical, social, and political issues in Aboriginal education; terminology; cultural, spiritual and philosophical themes in Aboriginal worldviews; and how Aboriginal worldviews can inform professional programs and practices, including but not limited to the field of education.

Enseigné par

Jean-Paul Restoule

Associate Professor

Transcription

So, we kind of get caught. If we deviate from these characteristics, we're not really Indian. And that's where the symbolic kind of annihilation happens. And I want to talk about a couple of stereotypes that don't fit nicely into either of these categories, but sort of circumscribe them, okay? And one of these is the notion of vanishing race, and this kind of fits with that linear idea of development, that everyone has, everyone progresses in this same way. And you know, when I was married to an idea of Social Darwinism, in the 1800s and early 1900s, there was this notion that the fittest would survive and those who were not fit would die off. And there was a notion then that because Indian populations were declining at that time it must be the natural state they're, they're destined to die off so that the superior civilizations could continue on. So, this notion that the race is vanishing leads to a number of kind of assumptions. One is, that's just nature's way, we should enable and allow it to just continue and happen. So, so that kind of lead to certain inertia around solving certain social problems and issues. It also led to some people thinking that since it's natural and it's progress, we should hasten their demise. And so, that led to some of the erosion of reservation and reserve land basis. Because they're dying off anyway, it doesn't really matter. We can put them out of sight so they can die off conveniently over there. And if you look at some of the writings of or our favorite some of the media of today you could certainly see that there are people proposing that in editorials and so forth that it was a good thing. Ironically, a lot of these remote reserves actually become, become then ways of preserving and enabling culture to survive longer because it became under less threat from assimilation by being out of the way of certain cultural pressures to assimilate and adapt, and so forth. Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent. But the other thing that happens with the vanishing race idea going to, back to that notion of coming in and saving and preserving, is that it enables certain disciplines like anthropology and, and some others like it to become the experts on Indian culture and knowledge. And they would swoop in to describe practices and characteristics and traits for the preservation of man's knowledge, right, right, humankind's knowledge. They became the ones who were best positioned to do this work before they die off and then we don't have access to that notion anymore. So, this kind of idea of vanishing race, the, the notion of inevitability that comes with it is what makes it kind of so intriguing and dangerous and scary. And it still kind of goes on today and I would say, it's complicated because even you know, even indigenous people, and this is the thing about stereotypes, anyone can kind of enable and enact those stereotypes to their own purposes, for, for good or not. And a lot of indigenous people will talk about picking up something before it's lost, so they're also using that vanishing race idea, too as a justification for certain actions that they do. The other stereotype that doesn't kind of neatly fit but I think we need to talk about is this notion of being trapped in a certain time. So, like the living fossil idea, that in order to be an authentic Indian what is authentic, has to kind of be preserved in a certain moment in time, and that time is always shifting. It's interesting because people will talk about pre-contact as being what is really Indian and traditional, as though it can't change and adapt with time. Like shouldn't culture change and adapt over time? Or some people will set up certain, kind of arbitrary dates and times like for, for a lot of movies, they created this notion of what is an authentic Indian. It's the long dark hair, riding a horse, probably doing a war dance or something like that. And it's an encoding of the Sioux wars and then applying that to kind of all Indian groups. So, if you've seen one Indian, you've seen them all. This kind of notion, like, well, I didn't think you were going to look like that. So, well, why, where did you get that notion of what they look like? And I think it's kind of the, the rise in newspaper coverage of those wars. And the depiction with the new medium of photography of certain Sioux warriors and, and that becomes standing in for all Indians and gets especially popular and encoded in Wild West shows, which were quite popular, and then movies. I think a lot of us have seen the impact of Westerns and, on that notion of what is an authentic Indian. So, so, going along with this living fossil stereotype is this notion that if they adapt, Indians that is, if they adapt any kind of technology that wasn't there prior to contact with European peoples, that's somehow not authentic. And it may seem kind of absurd when you really think about it, that, well, surely, the technology that I'm using right now is not the same that Mm ancestors used 20 years ago or, or so forth. But when it comes to Indians, it's like you're not allowed to change. You have to stay and to be authentic at this one point on that line of progress. Because if you adapt these other things, you're chipping away at your real identity. And so, where does that become especially damaging is in tink of some of the court cases that have in the 1990s, in Canada, that have defined Aboriginal rights through the constitution. There was one which came to be known as the Delgamuukw Decision, where the Gitksan, Wet'suwet'en peoples in the initial BC judgement, it was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada. But in the initial BC judgement, because the Wet'suwet'en peoples used microwave pizza and drove cars, that they were considered to have given up their Indianness, okay? So, this is, you know when, when people who have that kind of power like a federal court judge or a provincial court judge, and they take the stereotypes and they use them in their basis and reasons for judgement, it really impacts the people, right? As educators, and teachers, and learners you know, we, we have a certain power as well. When we look at these sources and we try and find the stereotypes that are in them, the biases that are in them when we work with our, with our students and with their learners on addressing their attitude and their prejudice, because we all have our prejudices and when we work on those to understand how we're looking at Indian people and life and issue, we have a profound impact, too. So, this is one of the reasons that stereotypes are, are, they really do matter.